


Revelation

by RamblingIntoTheDistance



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Kingdom Hearts III Speculation, Sora appears briefly, Xigbar is mostly called Braig so I'm tagging them both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 21:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13773417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RamblingIntoTheDistance/pseuds/RamblingIntoTheDistance
Summary: “Well, hey, it looks like the kiddo’s pretty much stable now.  So why don’t we get this show on the road?”  Vanitas knew that voice.  It seemed to almost bounce through his memory in unseen echoes in a way that it hadn’t before.The new trailers have some... interesting details concerning Vanitas.  Speculation on how they and their implications may pan out.





	Revelation

**Author's Note:**

> This was written pretty quickly, and could probably use a few more rounds of editing, but oh well. 
> 
> People have been pointing out some details concerning Vanitas in the newest trailers, particularly how he seems almost desperate at points. Combined with the BBS novelization's backstory for him and the fact that his theme was in the Heroes and Heroines medley, he's seemingly edging closer to the 'likely sympathetic' side of things.
> 
> That said, I don't think I write him very well, even with the excuse that he's a bit off his game here. Constructive criticism would be appreciated!

  Receding footsteps echoed impossibly loudly.   A pause.  A voice was directed at him, unclear except for the almost sing-song slant it held.

  Vanitas tried to reply.  What came out wasn’t so much a scream as it is a rising keen, breaking off into nearly inaudible pitch.  He quickly clamped his mouth closed, but the sound kept coming in a thin stream that he couldn’t quite swallow down.

  Despite his efforts to the contrary, he couldn’t keep focused on the speaker’s face somewhere above him.  Any attempt seemed to blur his willpower along with his vision until his awareness was drawn back to the pain that seemed to encompass his body like a cloud.  He hadn’t felt anything this bad since he’d first been split.  It seemed to pulse through him, and with a jolt he realized that it wasn’t just _like_ a cloud – he was surrounded by a literal haze of darkness.  

  It wasn’t _just_ darkness either, he realized, swallowing down another thread of sound.  To the rhythm of the throbbing (his actual, physical heart, he thought), it was condensing around him.  No – it was literally forming into his body. 

  He slowly lowered his hands from where he could feel them digging into his scalp, staring.  They looked almost wispy at the edges – like a strong wind would blow him apart -  but already his suit was forming around his fingers.  The pain slowly faded, taking the effect with it.

  “Well, _hey_ , it looks like the kiddo’s pretty much stable now.  So why don’t we get this show on the road?”  Vanitas knew that voice.  It seemed to almost _bounce_ through his memory in unseen echoes in a way that it hadn’t before.   It reminded him of the sensation he’d gotten when he’d met his other half’s companions for the first time, whispers of _supposed to make them with seashells_ and _you see all those dents and nicks_ rising to the forefront of his mind.  These – these were fainter and seemed to almost collide with each other, jostling until the words were even harder to make out. 

  “Kiddo.”  A hand squeezed his shoulder, too rough to be more than an imitation of a friendly gesture.    _Tiger.  Poppet._

“Anybody in there?” the voice drawled.

  “Braig,” Vanitas remembered.  The name felt strange on his tongue.  “Why-“

  “So he _is_ alive after all!” Braig’s hand moved to clap him on the back.  “Anyway, here’s the plan.  You’re gonna come with us, and X-face and I will try to answer any questions you got on the way.  Don’t worry – it’s a bit of a walk, there’ll be plenty of time.  You got that?”

  Vanitas nodded slowly, mind still trying to piece together what was going on.  He wasn’t quite in any state to fight or even run at this point, and he’d seen how quickly Braig had gained power before.  He didn’t really want to see what he was like all this time later.  (How much time had-)

  “Alright-y then, let’s go!  Right this way.”  Braig pushed him forwards.  Surprisingly, he didn’t stumble, his feet finding purchase relatively – ah.  He looked around.  It was the Graveyard.  His gaze quickly returned to his feet.  He could think about this sudden bout of weakness later.  When they’d left this place.

  He shuffled along behind Braig. 

  “Right, we’re meeting X-face a bit further over there.  So in the meantime, we need to catch you up.”  The fabric of Braig’s coat rustled loudly as he gestured.  “Hmm.  You remember Gramps, right?  Of course you do.  Well, anyhow, your little skirmish _did_ produce the X-blade that he wanted, but then what’s-her-name broke it.  You probably know that too, though, huh?  So he decided that the problem was in the method of forging it – the proportions and whatnot.  He decided to even things out – multiple people working on each side. 

  “That’s where we come in!  They’ve got seven lights, we’ve got thirteen darknesses.  And guess what?  I say ‘we’ because you, me, and X-face over there are part of them!  We’ve actually been recruited a while back.”  Braig twisted to look over at him, a sarcastic smile on is lips.   “You follow that?”

  “Sure,” Vanitas rasped.  Well, he followed it anyway.  Didn’t care much for it, but he could probably run when he’d been given the chance to recover a bit.  Something _pinged_ oddly in the back of his head as Braig’s eyes lingered on him, but Braig turned away before he could put his finger on it.

  “Yo, Saix!”  Braig called, cupping his hands to his mouth.  “He’s done!”

  The other man turned to face them from where he’d been standing, and Vanitas felt jumbled emotions rise at the sight of him.  His eyes (gold, why were they gold?) looked him up and down before he nodded.

  They walked silently together to a secluded end of a gorge.  It was an old one.  He’d taken cover near here in the years before confronting Ventus, and before then -  Vanitas fought the urge to let out an Unversed.  He really couldn’t be doing that in his condition, at least if he wanted to be in any state to run or fight soon. 

  Braig gave a broad gesture, and a dark corridor opened up before them.

  “If you were just going to do that, then why come all the way over here?” Vanitas asked, somewhat scornfully.   Braig scoffed.

  “Man, I wish we could just do that.  As if.  We never know when one of the lights is gonna show up, so we need to be a bit stealthier now days.  In we go.”

  “Xigbar,” Saix said, turning to look at Vanitas.  “You didn’t give him the coat.”

  Something in Vanitas twinged at the sound of his voice.  _A puppet is a puppet_ hit him first.  A sense of perceived loss and a fond _you’re obnoxious_ and suddenly Vanitas couldn’t feel any of the residual pain through his sudden focus. 

  Braig (Xigbar?) continued obliviously. “Oops.  You’re right.  Kiddo, you’re going to have to wear one of these.”  He shoved a coat identical to the ones they were wearing at Vanitas.  “Now I think your little ensemble there does give you some protection from the darkness, but, hey, gotta do what the bossman says, right?”

  Vanitas slowly put the coat on.  Most of his suit remained intact beneath it, minus a few knickknacks like the gloves and boots, which seemed to shrink to the thickness of a second skin.   His eyes flickered.  He looked to the streaks in Braig’s hair (he’s too young, too laid-back for those) to Saix’s scar (a faint _that sigil – the X_ echoed).   He finally broke his gaze from Saix’s eyes to meet the faint expression of amusement dancing in Braig’s.

  “Well, kid?  You gonna spit it out anytime soon?”  He really didn’t like the tone in Braig’s voice.

  “How exactly does Master Xehanort ‘recruit’ members to work for him?”  He tried to keep his voice steady.  Tried to keep a disinterested tone.  (His _own_ eyes were gold.  They’d been – they’d been blue before, then red after he was split.  Was-?)

 

  Vanitas really didn’t like the answer to that question, either.

 

\---

 

  Vanitas searched himself frantically, nearly clawing at his half of a heart.  There!  There was something distinctly _not him_ , like a cyst or a bud in the already chaotic mass _._   He tried to scratch at it, pull at it, dig it out, but the _thing_ refused to move.  He nearly screamed with frustration (and fear.  He’d already become someone else once, already been split once, how much of him was him how much of himself was he going to lose-), but he clamped his jaw shut and tried to think. 

  (He’d checked his own reflection in his helmet as soon as he had a chance.   Were his eyes glowing?  Had they done that before?  Was it just his fear ratcheting the little details into greater significance? (No, no, it’s not paranoia if it is _happening all around you._ ) He’d never really _looked_ at himself before.)

  He needed to keep his head down.  If he attracted attention, it might get worse.  Braig seemed mostly himself.  Maybe if he behaved – Vanitas clawed at his head.  Were those really his thoughts?  Master Xehanort would surely benefit from that kind of thinking as well.

 _Not if he didn’t know you were rebelling_ , he thought, but.  No.  His other half’s friend was here too – that stupidly determined Terra, who would certainly be fighting back if given half the chance. 

  He was probably lucky that his heart was so unstable.  Would anyone else even know how to look?  (Had any of them noticed, or had he clung with a touch lighter than a blood-sucking insect until it was too late - his victims left hollow shells of who they had been or filled with someone else entirely?)  ( _A puppet is a puppet._ )

  Hollow – he’d been parted from Ventus again, so he was only half a heart now, wasn’t he?  Last time – last time Master Xehanort had told him to stay away until Ventus was stronger.  But that had been with the goal of creating the X-blade.  And although Ventus had beaten him in their last fight, he’d nearly been destroyed by it as well.  And now there was this _thing_ growing in the space where he should be.

  Vanitas straightened.  He could still feel Ventus off in the distance.  Weaker now, and with an odd sort of reverberation, but he _could_ find him again, if he tried.  Maybe if he did, he could fix this.

 

\---

 

  Somehow, the fainter echo was at one of the first places he thought to look.  It would be a terrible hiding spot, if that’s what the strange effect was for.

  It probably wasn’t for hiding, Vanitas thought as he stepped through the corridor.   The Land of Departure was nearly unrecognizable.  The edges of the path leading up to the castle were crumbling, and the entire thing looked as if someone had just neglected to properly recount or recall what was _supposed_ to be there.

  He managed to cautiously slide open the door before the jumbled memories stopped him in his tracks.  _Death_ and _fighting_ and _pain_ and _flowers._   He frowned to himself, behind the mask he’d hastily summoned just after leaving Braig’s presence.  _Flowers?_   The thought seemed to double back on itself with a different tone.  _No matter_ , he thought, shaking off the lingering sense of loss.  Ventus wouldn’t be here.  It was too empty, to hollow, like a recreation of something long past.

 

\---

 

  According to what he’d heard from a few of the others (mostly Braig), to attract the attention of one light in particular, all he really had to do was go to a world near him and make a bit of a ruckus.

  “You should have a go at him,” Braig had said, smirking. “It might be fun!”

  He wasn’t entirely sure what Braig had meant by that last bit, but his movements did seem to match up with Vanitas’ internal track of Ventus, so maybe there _was_ something behind it. 

  Bottled emotion – perhaps if he got tracked down, he could say he had been looking into it. 

 

  Vanitas really hoped he wouldn’t be tracked down.

 

\---

 

  He’d _found_ him.  Vanitas could _feel_ Ventus’s light tugging him towards this boy.   There was something familiar about his face, even despite the apparent transformation the world had given him, but it did match that harboring another’s heart could affect the host’s appearance.  Given the impression he’d gained, this ‘Sora’ wouldn’t let Ventus go without a fight.

  He brandished his keyblade at him.  _So close_.  Somehow, he’d forgotten how strongly the they pulled at each other over the last years.

  “Vanitas!” The other boy gasped, the name layering itself much like the odd echoes he’d been picking up. 

_Finally._

  “Ventus!” Vanitas greeted, relieved.  _I’ve found you._ “What a strange place to slither off to…”


End file.
